The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is already working its way through 18 officer-involved shooting investigations across the state in 2026, a caseload that grew after a Hickman County traffic stop turned deadly on Sunday. What started as a routine pull-over spiraled into a struggle, investigators say, ending with one man dead and no reported injuries to deputies. The growing tally comes on the heels of 2025, when the bureau investigated 54 officer-involved shootings, and it is sharpening scrutiny of how Tennessee tracks and reviews police use of force from Bristol to Memphis.
Hickman County traffic stop turns deadly
Around 3 p.m. Sunday, deputies stopped a vehicle in the 2100 block of Old Beaver Creek Road, according to TBI Newsroom. Investigators say a scuffle broke out in the front passenger seat, and multiple deputies fired their weapons, hitting James Heggie. He was taken to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. Special agents will gather evidence and interview witnesses, then turn their findings over to 32nd Judicial District Attorney General Hans Schwendimann for review.
Statewide tally and trends
The Hickman County shooting marked the TBI's 18th officer-involved shooting investigation of 2026, according to local reporting. WSMV reported that 12 of those 18 investigations so far this year were fatal and that the bureau handled 54 such investigations statewide in 2025. The agency keeps a running public list of the cases it takes on, giving reporters, defense attorneys, and prosecutors a way to track patterns over time and across jurisdictions.
Why the tally likely undercounts incidents
On its officer-involved-shootings page, the TBI notes, "There is no state law requiring TBI to investigate use-of-force cases," explaining that agents only respond after a local district attorney formally asks for help. In practice, that means the bureau's public list captures only those shootings where a DA called in the TBI, not every time an officer fires a weapon. The agency also points out that records from fatal officer-involved shootings are released only after its investigation and any related prosecutorial work have wrapped up, a process that can slow the public release of body-camera footage, 911 recordings, and other key evidence.
What happens next in the Hickman investigation
According to the TBI's statement, special agents will keep collecting physical evidence, talking to witnesses, and reviewing any available body-worn camera or in-car video before assembling a full investigative file for District Attorney General Hans Schwendimann. There is no public timetable for how long the work or the DA's review might take, and officials have not named the deputies involved. Community members and legal observers typically watch these cases closely, since the district attorney ultimately decides whether criminal charges are warranted.
Local pressure for openness
Across Tennessee, advocates and residents have pressed for more transparency and quicker disclosures in officer-involved shooting cases, pointing to long waits for footage and investigative files. WSMV has been tracking this year's shootings and found that several communities, including Bristol, Smyrna, and Chattanooga, have already been the focus of more than one TBI probe in 2026. Officials say the combination of district attorneys' decisions, local police policies, TBI protocols, and state records laws all influence how quickly the public can see what happened in each case.
For the TBI's original notice on the Hickman County shooting and additional statewide coverage of the 18 investigations so far in 2026, see reporting by FOX17. This story will be updated as new official findings or prosecutor decisions are announced.
